Prices of Books

In this chapter some account will be given of a few of the various classes of literature which have not previously been alluded to; but to give a general idea of some of these books which bring a high price, it will be necessary to be brief.

Oldys refers to the sale of a book which he supposes to have been erroneously valued, but he was not quite correct in his statement. He wrote, “The atheistical book of Giordano Bruno sold at Paul’s Coffee-house for £30 in 1709; it has scarcely sold for so many pence since.”56

The book referred to was—Giordano Bruno, Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante. Parigi (Londra: T. Vautrollier 1584), the sale of which is commented upon in The Spectator, No. 389. The sale at which this book occurred was that of Charles Bernard in 1711, and the amount was really £28. The purchaser was Walter Clavel, and this copy was successively in the possession of John Nichols, John Ames, Sir Peter Thompson, and M. C. Tutet. At the sale of the latter’s library in 1786 it was bought by Samuel Tyssen for seven guineas. Another copy, which had formed part of the library of Mr. P. Le Neve, was sold at Dr. Mead’s sale (1754) for four or five guineas.57 The price has not gone down, as Oldys supposed it would, for at the Dunn Gardner sale (1880) a copy brought £20, 15s., and another, at the Duke of Hamilton’s sale (1884), sold for £18, 10s.

There is a larger circle of bibliophiles in France than in England, and they are more willing to pay high prices for out-of-the-way books. The early editions of Molière and Rabelais, like those of Shakespeare, are sold for large sums, and early French literature generally, like our own, has greatly advanced in price of late years.

Two instances of the great advance that has occurred may be given:—

Perrault, Contes de ma Mere Loye, 1697, wanting leaf of errata, a fine copy, in blue morocco by Bauzonnet, sold at Charles Nodier’s sale for 112 francs. The same copy at the Duke of Hamilton’s sale brought £85.

Gringoire, Les Fantasies de Mere Sote (Paris, 1516), a copy in blue morocco by Padeloup, sold at Hibbert’s sale for nine guineas. The same copy brought the large sum of £180 at Beckford’s sale. One can understand such high prices as these, which arise from the revived interest felt in this kind of book, but the high price of Le Pastissier François (Amsterdam: L. & D. Elzevier, 1655) seems absurd. Such a book can be of little interest to English buyers, although certainly Mr. Andrew Lang grows enthusiastic over it in his “Books and Bookmen.” In an early edition of his Manuel (1821) Brunet wrote—

“Till now I have disdained to admit this book into my work, but I have yielded to the prayers of amateurs. Besides, how could I keep out a volume which was sold for one hundred and one francs in 1819?”

The book has greatly increased in value since then, and, as a consequence, copies not hitherto known have come into the market. Berard only knew of two copies. Pietiers, writing on the Elzevirs in 1843, could cite only five, and in his Annales he had found out but five more. Willems, on the other hand, enumerates some thirty, not including Motteley’s.58 Mr. Lang himself calculates the number of Pastissiers now existing at forty, and gives a good many prices to show how the book has increased in value. A copy was sold in 1780 for 4 francs. Sensièr’s copy sold for 128 francs in 1828, and for 201 francs in 1837. It was afterwards bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet, and sold with Potier’s books in 1870 for 2910 francs. At the Benzon sale (1875) it fetched 3255 francs, and was sold again in 1877 for 2200 francs. Mr. Lang further says that a copy was marked in Bachelin-Deflorenne’s catalogue at £240, and that Morgand and Fatout sold an uncut copy for £400. The Earl of Orford’s copy sold in 1895 for £100.

This is one of the very few books that are absolutely valueless, except in regard to such value as it gains from its rarity and association with a great firm of printers; yet Mr. Lang says that “there are at least four thousand people who would greatly rejoice to possess a Pastissier, and some of these desirous ones are very wealthy.” This is amazing, but I suppose it would scarcely be polite to refer to Carlyle’s verdict as to what the mass of people are.

Another scarce book, which is stupid, and of no interest in itself, is Horace Walpole’s “Hieroglyphic Tales” (1785). The British Museum does not possess a perfect copy, but it has some of Walpole’s own corrected proofs bound up in a volume. The Earl of Orford’s copy, interleaved and bound in morocco by Roger Payne, sold in 1895 for £37.

County histories vary in price, but they must always hold their ground and sell well, on account of the value of the information contained in their pages, which cannot easily be found elsewhere. They may be considered as eminently safe property. The following are the prices of a few of these:—

Atkyns’s (Sir R.) Gloucestershire, folio, 1712. Large paper (first and best edition).

Bryant (1807), £17, 17s. Dent (1827), £14, 14s. Sykes, £16. Nassau, 15 guineas. H. Perkins (1873), £29. Comerford (1881), £41. Beresford-Hope (1882), £38. Beckford (1882), £52.

Aubrey’s Surrey, 5 vols., 1719. Large paper.

Dent, £19, 5s. H. Perkins (1873), £32, 10s.

Blomefield’s Norfolk, 5 vols., 1739-75.

Comerford (1881), £160 (illustrated). Earl of Gosford (1884), £87 (drawings by Cotman inserted). William Brice, &c. (1887), £20.

Drake’s (T.) Eboracum, History of the City of York, 1736. Large paper, proof-plates coloured, in red morocco by Kalthoeber.

H. Perkins (1873), £25. Beckford (1882), £63.

Dugdale’s (Sir W.) Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656. First edition, and the only one admitted as evidence in a court of law.

Bindley, £10, 10s. Sykes, £11, 11s. Comerford, £12, 10s. Beckford (1882), £20. Sunderland (1882), £15.

Dugdale’s Warwickshire, 2 vols., 1730. Large paper.

Dent, £33. Sykes, £39, 8s. Heath, £64, 1s. Nassau, £33. Willett, £52, 10s. H. Perkins (1873), £84 (red morocco by Derome).

Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments, 5 vols., 1786-96.

Fonthill, £92, 8s. Beckford (1882), £31. (Same copy.)

Loggan (D.), Oxonia illustrata, 1675.

Beckford (1882), £14 (old red morocco).

–– Cantabrigia illustrata, 1688.

Beckford (1882), £11 (old red morocco).

Nichols’s Leicestershire, four vols. in eight, 1795-1815. Large paper (original edition of vol. iv., part 1), russia extra.

H. Perkins (1873) £260. Earl of Gosford (1884), £275.

Ormerod’s Cheshire, 3 vols., 1819. Large paper.

H. Perkins (1873), plates in three states-etchings, proofs, and proofs on India paper, morocco extra by Lewis, one of six copies, £155.

Plot’s Oxfordshire, 1677. Large paper.

Beckford (1883), £8, 15s. (old red morocco).

–– Staffordshire, 1686. Large paper.

Beckford (1883), £40, 10s. (old black morocco).

Thoroton’s Nottinghamshire, 1677.

Heber (part 9), £11, 5s. Beresford-Hope (1882), £11. Beckford (1883), £14, 10s.

First editions of our English classics have increased greatly in price of late years. Many of Defoe’s works are very scarce, and bring good prices. The late Mr. James Crossley had a fine collection of these, but his library was in such poor condition that the books did not sell well. The British Museum bought at his sale, June 20, 1885, the autograph manuscript of Defoe’s “Compleat English Gentleman,” which had never been printed until Mr. Nutt issued it to subscribers in 1890. The manuscript remained in the possession of Defoe’s relations, the Baker family, for more than a hundred years, as Dawson Turner bought it in 1831 from the Rev. H. D. F. Baker, the descendant of Henry Baker, son-in-law of Defoe, for £69. In 1859, at the sale of Turner’s MSS., Crossley bought the book for £75, 8s.

Robinson Crusoe, first edition, 2 vols., 1719.

Roxburghe (1812), £1, 4s. Sotheby’s (1846), £4, 16s. (with “Serious Reflections,” 3 vols., 1719-20).

Alfred Crampton, 1896 (3 vols.), £75.

Sir Cecil Domville, 1897 (part 1), £45, 10s.

Walton’s Angler, 1653, first edition.

Rev. J. Brand (1807), £3, 3s. (fine copy). Hunter (1813), £7, 10s. Utterson (1852), £11, 15s. Beckford (1883), fine copy in green morocco, £87—Bain. Gibson-Craig (1887), £195 (morocco). Gibson-Craig (1888), £23 (imperfect, sold with all faults). G. Wood (Sotheby, 1891), £310 (clean, in original sheepskin). Sotheby (December 1895), £415.

Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, first edition.

Mansfield-Mackenzie (1889), £67. T. B. T. Hildyard (1895), £56 (original calf). Alfred Crampton (1896), £65 (morocco extra by Bedford). Rare Books and MSS. (Sotheby, March 1897), £60 (original calf).

BOOKS ON VELLUM

Collectors have always had a fancy for these very choice books, and that the taste has not yet died out is seen from the fact that the late William Morris printed copies of the beautiful books issued from the Kelmscott Press on vellum, and was particularly careful in the selection of the skins, which he obtained at first from Italy. A complete set of all the books on vellum (including Chaucer), forty-nine volumes, were offered at the Kelmscott Press for £650, and have been sold at that price.

We can understand the early printed books being struck off upon vellum, as the printers appreciated that material on account of its use by the scribes in the production of the beautiful manuscripts of a former age, but it is surely infinitely more convenient to have a book printed on good paper rather than on such a refractory material as vellum. Some collectors have been so infatuated as to confine their libraries to books printed on vellum, and the French Marshal Junot was one of them. Modern books were printed for him on this substance; but when they came to be sold it was found that the public did not care much for his books, and more than half of them were bought in. One of the lots illustrates in a remarkable manner the advance in prices at the present time. The book was Longus’s Pastoralia, printed by Didot in 1802. One copy only was pulled on vellum for the Marshal, and this volume contained the original drawings of Proudhon, and a set of proof impressions of the engravings. At the Junot sale in 1816 this book only realised £37, 10s.; at the Beckford sale it brought £900. One of the most charming of Junot’s books was the Didot Horace of 1799 folio, a volume which contained the original drawings from which the copperplate vignettes were executed. This was bought by George Hibbert for £140.

Of old books, mention may be made of the dedication copy to James V. of John Bellenden’s translation of Hector Boece’s “Cronikles of Scotland” (1536), which was printed on vellum, and which, in a fine old binding, realised at the Duke of Hamilton’s sale (1884), £800.

Dibdin styled this hobby of collectors the fifth symptom of the bibliomania, and he gave a list of the vellum-printed books in Count MacCarthy’s and James Edwards’s libraries. In the latter collection was a copy of Martin Luther’s German Bible (Augsburg, 1535, two vols. folio), which sold for the reasonable price of £52, 10s. These copies on vellum were printed at the charge of John Frederick, Elector of Saxony.

Edwards employed Bodoni to print for him six copies of the edition of the “Castle of Otranto” (Parma, 1791) on vellum, and his own copy, made up with a selection of the best sheets, sold at his sale in 1815 for £29, 8s.

At Watson Taylor’s sale Pope’s “Essay on Man” (1819), printed on vellum, sold for £10.

Mention has already been made of the grand copies on vellum of the earliest productions of the printing-press—the Mazarin Bible, &c.

ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

Good illustrated books, which are an ornament to any library, are now high priced, and are not likely to fall in value. Such books as Dibdin’s bibliographical works, Rogers’s “Italy” and “Poems,” and many other books of a like kind, must always be a delight to the æsthetic collector.

Collections of engraved portraits have realised great prices, such as Holland’s Basiliωgia (1618), which sold for £600 at Christie’s in 1811; and his Herωologia (1620), which sold for £17 at the Beckford sale, £28, 10s. at the Earl of Crawford’s sale (1887), and £19, 15s. at W. H. Crawford’s (Lakelands) sale (1891); and the superb series of Vandyck’s etchings, which sold for £2850 at the Beckford sale.

Great prices have also been paid for extra illustrated books; but it is useless to record the prices given for them, unless a list of the contents is given also. Grangerising has been ridiculed with much justice, and some of the bulky works which have been produced, such as the illustrated Bibles and Shakespeares, are instances of a very absurd mania. Dr. Hill Burton gave an amusing and by no means exaggerated sketch in his “Book Hunter” of how the compiler set about his work. Now in England Grangerising is mostly confined within the limits of illustrating topographical works with views and historical books with portraits, but in the United States the old plan is said to be still in force.

BINDINGS

In no class of books have prices more conspicuously advanced than in the case of bindings, and in many sales that have taken place of late years fine specimens have been brought to the hammer; but no sale could compare with that of the Beckford library in this respect. Good examples of the libraries of Margaret of Valois, Maioli, Grolier, Thuanus, and Canevari are eagerly sought after, and the following prices of some of the choicest of these bindings will give readers an idea of the current values of these charming books:—

Marguerite de Valois. Carmina illustrium Poetarum Italorum, 1579, 2 vols. Old brown morocco, covered with the arms and devices of Marguerite de Valois.

Beckford (1882), £242.

Diane de Poictiers. Le Livre des Statuts et Ordonances de l’Ordre de Sainct Michel (Paris, 1550), printed on vellum. A beautiful specimen of the library of Diane de Poictiers, in old brown morocco, ornamented with the arms of Henry II. of France, the crescent, bows and quivers of Diana, and fleurs de lis.

Beckford (1882), £155.

Grolier. I. Aurelius Augurellus (Venetiis: Aldus, 1505). Brown morocco, beautiful specimen of Grolier’s library.

Beckford (1882), £250.

–– Lucanus cura Aldi Romani (Venetiis: Aldus, 1515). Grolier’s copy, covered with scroll tooling.

Beckford (1882), £290.

–– Another copy, veau fauve, with Grolier tooling, £120.

Grolier and Thuanus. Lucanus de Bello Civili (Lutetiæ: R. Stephanus, 1545). Brown morocco, covered with Grolier tooling; apparently bound for Grolier, and subsequently possessed by Thuanus.

Beckford (1882), £135.

–– Franchini Poemata (Romæ, 1554). Red morocco, covered with Grolier tooling, and monogram of the Marquis de Menars on back, from the libraries of Grolier and Thuanus.

Beckford (1882), £230.

Grolier and Thuanus. Buchanani Psalmorum Paraphrasis Poetica (apud H. et R. Stephanum, s.a.). Olive morocco, sides and back covered with gold tooling in the Grolier style, the first arms of Thuanus forming the centre ornament.

Beckford (1882), £310.

Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria. Sainct Johan Zebedee L’Apocalypse, Mystère (Paris, 1541). Blue morocco, richly ornamented with gold tooling and the crowned cyphers of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, by A. Ruette.

Beckford (1882), £255.

Demetrio Canevari, Physician to Urban VIII. Tirante il Bianco (Vinegia, 1538). A perfect specimen of Canevari’s library, in Venetian red morocco, with his device.

Beckford (1883), £111.

Du Fresnoy. Lucanus de Bello Civili (Lugd. Bat., 1658). Red morocco, richly ornamented with gold tooling, with arms and monogram of H. Petit Du Fresnoy stamped on the sides and back, by Boyet.

Beckford (1882), £84.

Marguerite de Montmorency, Dame de Fosseteau. Duchesne, Histoire genealogique de la maison de Montmorency et de Laval, 2 vols. in 1 (Paris, 1624). Old olive morocco, the sides and back covered with the MF and device (the Marguerite) of Marguerite de Montmorency.

Beckford (1882), £120.

A few instances of the work of the great French binders follow, and it will be seen that the work of no binder is more appreciated by collectors than that of Monnier:—

Clovis Eve. Coloured Drawings of Maps and Plans of places in France, executed in 1602 and 1603 for Henry IV.’s own use. Olive morocco, covered with fleurs de lis, the King’s arms forming the centre ornament, with his crowned H at each corner. A magnificent specimen of Clovis Eve’s art.

Beckford (1882), £375.

Boyet. In the second portion of the Sunderland library there was a small volume in old crimson morocco (Cicero, De Officiis, Amst. ex off. Elzeviriani, 1677), which was not specially described, nor the title printed in capitals. It did not look worth many pounds, but Mr. Quaritch obtained it after an exciting contest with Mr. Morgand for £120. The cause of the excitement was this: from the character of the end papers it was judged that the book had been bound by the French binder Boyet. Specimens of his handiwork are very rare, and hence the great price.

Deseuil (or Du Seuil). In the second portion of the Beckford library was a copy of the Leyden edition of Macrobius (1670), bound in red morocco doublé by Deseuil. This fetched £39, while another copy in vellum only realised 16s.

Here is another instance of the increased value of a copy of a book bound by a good binder. A copy of Montaigne, Essais, 3 vols. 8vo (Amst.: Elzevir, 1659), bound in red morocco double by Deseuil, brought £200, while another copy, bound by Roger Payne in red morocco, only sold for £12, 10s.

A small duodecimo volume bound by Deseuil (Longus, Les Amours Pastorales de Daphnis et Chloe, Paris, 1788) was sold at G. Daniel’s sale in 1864 for £92.

Monnier. Decor Puellarum (Venetia: N. Jenson, 1471). Girardot de Prefond’s copy, a magnificent specimen of Monnier’s binding, in blue morocco, ornamented with flowers worked on variegated leathers, and stamped in gold.

Beckford (1883), £530.

–– De l’Imitation de Jesus Christ traduction nouvelle (Paris, 1690). Large paper. Citron morocco, magnificent specimen of Monnier’s binding.

Beckford (1882), £356.

–– Corneille, Rodogune. Au Nord [Versailles], 1760. Madame de Pompadour’s own copy, printed under her eyes in a northern apartment of the Palace of Versailles, in yellow morocco; fine specimen of Monnier’s binding.

Beckford (1882), £325.

It has hitherto been the fine French and Italian bindings that have fetched the high prices, but now some of the beautiful English bindings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are coming in for their share of consideration. At the Earl of Orford’s sale (1895) R. Wood’s “Essay on Homer” (1785), bound by Roger Payne by order of Wood’s widow for presentation to Horace Walpole, sold for ten guineas. There is an interest in this book as having fallen into the hands of Goethe when his powers were first developing themselves, and it strongly interested him. Robert Wood was Under-Secretary of State in 1762, and he related an affecting anecdote of Lord Granville, a statesman known now only to the few. Wood was directed to wait upon the President of the Council (Lord Granville) a few days before he died with the preliminary articles of the Treaty of Paris. “I found him,” he continued, “so languid that I proposed postponing my business for another time; but he insisted that I should stay, saying that it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty,” adding a quotation from Homer, which may be found in Mr. Matthew Arnold’s discourses on Homeric translations.

EARLY EDITIONS OF MODERN AUTHORS

The last five-and-twenty years has seen the rise of a new taste in early editions of the works of modern authors, and a new class of bibliographers has arisen to describe these books.

Mr. J. H. Slater (the editor of “Book Prices Current”) has published a useful guide to this subject, entitled “Early Editions: a Bibliographical Survey of the Works of some popular Modern Authors. London, 1894.”

I have taken some particulars from this book, and supplemented them with a note of the prices realised at the remarkable sale of Mr. Alfred Crampton’s collection in 1896. I have also added a few books sold since that date.

Among the first of modern books to sell for high prices were the illustrated novels of Dickens and Thackeray, and to be valuable these must be in perfect condition, with the original wrappers, &c. After these come the other books illustrated by Cruikshank, “Phiz,” Leech, and others, viz., Ainsworth’s and Lever’s novels, Surtees’ Sporting novels—“Sponge’s Sporting Tour,” “Jorrocks’s Jaunts,” “Handley Cross,” &c.

Of poets, Shelley’s pieces were among the first to attain high prices, and Byron’s among the last.